No ingredient of the power with which the Allies inflicted defeat on
their enemies in World War II is less in dispute than the overwhelming
superiority in the materiel of war that they ultimately developed. Equally
evident is the fact that the United States took the lead in producing the
great variety and huge quantities of munitions, military equipment, supplies,
and services that gave them this superiority. The present volume is a description
and analysis of the basic problems, policies, and procedures with which
the War Department, in cooperation with almost every other agency of government,
was concerned in carrying out a nationwide program of economic mobilization.

This work traces the foundations of the achievement in the nation's
experience of World War I and the planning for economic mobilization with
which the War Department was charged in the period between the two wars.
It describes, for each of the major substantive areas of economic mobilization,
the nation's transition from a peacetime status through the eighteen-month
"defense period" to the achievement of a full-fledged war economy.

Before production for war had reached its peak, planning for a return
to a peacetime economy began, and the book in its concluding chapters describes
this and the operations by which the vast machine was dismantled and reconverted.
An "epilogue" chapter reviews and summarizes the effort of economic
mobilization as a whole and presents the author's conclusions.

The volume concentrates on the basic issues as they appeared at the
highest policy-making levels of the War Department-the Office of the Under
Secretary of

Page 15

War and the staff divisions of the Headquarters of the Army Service
Forces. Nevertheless, in order to show the operational effects of the policies
adopted, and in turn the reciprocal effects of operations on policy, the
study includes many of the activities of the Army's actual procuring arms
and services.

These operations are set forth in detail in the volumes of the United
States Army in World War II devoted to each of the technical services.
The present volume, in addition to forming the capstone of these as far
as they relate to economic mobilization and reconversion, is closely related
to such others in the series as both Global Logistics and Strategy volumes,
The Army and Industrial Manpower, and The Organization and Role
of the Army Service Forces. It may also be read to advantage in conjunction
with the various histories, official and unofficial, that describe the
wartime activities of other governmental agencies on the home front.

Key topics:
1. The following subject areas are discussed throughout:

a. Economics of war.
b. Relation between economic, political, and other factors in the development
and administration of economic control systems.
c. Production feasibility of wartime requirement programs.
d. Organization and administration of military procurement; military versus
civilian responsibility for procurement; quantities, varieties, and special
characteris-tics of military procurement items.
e. Contract placement problems: selection of contractors, development and
use of the negotiated contract, preliminary contractual instruments, and
contract forms.
f. Wartime pricing problems: effects of the decline of competition in wartime;
pricing policy as a means of economizing real resources; dilemmas posed
by the requirement of "close pricing"; effects of ceiling prices
upon military procurement; and alternative and complementary solutions
to wartime pricing problems.

2. Problems of small business in the placement and administration of
war contracts (Ch. XVIII).
3. Financing of military and industrial facilities (Chs. XIX-XXI).
4. War Department procurement planning-1920-40 (Ch. III).
5. Nationwide industrial mobilization planning-1920-40 (Ch. IV).
6. Methods of determining military requirements (Chs. VI-VIII).
7. Nature and administration of Army cost-plus-a-fixed-fee contracts in
World War II (Ch. XII).
8. Pricing in fixed-price contracts; origin and development of progressive
pricing articles (Ch. XIII).
9. Contract renegotiation-origin and nature, principles, policies, and
results in World War II (Chs. XV-XVI).
10. Nature and administration of "tax amortization" provisions
for rapid write-off of capital facilities in World War II (Ch. XX).
11. Evolution and administration of the priorities system in World War
II (Chs. XXIII-XXIV).